Bridge_Ojisan

page 19 of the Gaz Redemption AU comic! this is the start of a new “chapter” so to speak, which takes place during the highstorm when kaladin is strung up to die. There’s nothing in canon that indicates how Sadeas executed Lamaril other than the fact he seems to have carried it out himself? Decapitation and hanging seem to be used for bridgemen and deserters respectively, and i didn’t wanna get confusing by giving Sadeas a sword, so i just had him use his hammer.

I was discussing on twitter the idea that Vathah secretly does care for his men. He's just very aloof because he's already lost so many companions and he sees himself as a genuinely bad person with no chance of redemption, with that extending to the other deserters. But he mellows out over time and i like the idea that one way this shows up is by way of him fixing his men's clothes (and his men in general, which someone would've had to do anyway when they were in the Frostlands...) Also, the title gave me an idea for a fanfic. hnn...

I was a sad sack most of the afternoon today but my friends cheered me up. So i drew a picture from the Redemption AU of Gaz being cheered up by his Cryptic. She can’t speak on her own (traumatized by the passage from the cognitive realm) so she makes up sentences by copying words she heard recently. It sounds like hearing something through a busted up old radio. Also, not even a whole AU all to himself is enough to cure Gaz of his self loathing.

This concludes part 3 of the Redemption AU comic! Next part covers Kaladin’s execution, but from Gaz’s point of view, which has a lot more “being indoors, playing cards with other officiers” and a lot less “almost dying a horribly painful death”.I promise to make you care about this. Somehow.

If my memory serves, Bridge 4 still manages to set their bridge. The assault goes well for them- it’s the other bridgemen who are completely stormed by Kaladin’s side-carry maneuver. Well, the other bridgemen… Kaladin himself…….Sadeas… Lamaril…… Gaz pretty much only survives execution (not for lack of trying on Lamaril’s part) because there was someone else on the chopping block already. So it’s just a disaster for everyone involved, in one way or the other.

I like to experiment a little with art styles and such in these pages. halfway thru this page i realized that this half-inking is actually not very fun to do. so it goes!

I feel like part of why chapter 30 is there is to humanize Gaz, make him less of a pure bully and more of a… Very angry, underpaid middle manager, caught between a rock and a hard place. If he can’t find the money to pay Lamaril, he’ll get demoted to bridgeman. If he doesn’t get Kaladin killed, he’ll get demoted. If he DOES get him killed, it’s back to square one, because he’ll lose the bribe money and to the bridges he goes. In the AU, he’s definitely still getting bribed for his non-interference: even if they’ve come to really value those few minutes a day when they can just sit together and think about something other than the realities of the warcamp… Even if they trust each other, in an odd sort of way… Kaladin knows better than to let “friendship” be the only thing separating his bridgemen from death. Being friends is fine: being friends with a constant reminder of their deal is better.

Ohh i had a whole description for this written that got deleted in an error. That smarts. Okay so: Kaladin doesn't trust figures in position of autority. They don't really look out for his well-being, nor his men's. But he's also someone who'll force himself to smile through a crushing depression because his men need him to smile. He's willing to put his feelings aside for someone else's good- be the leader they need him to be. I feel like this is what he's doing here. Although they've been spending scraps of time together every night, eating leftovers after the ritual Bridge 4 stew, Kaladin can't bring himself to trust Gaz. But a leader has to show he trusts his men. So he swallows the fear and speaks honestly.

Page 1 of part 3 of the Gaz Redemption AU comic! This section covers chapter 33, which is the one with Gaz as a POV character, and the “side carry” scene. I’ve a secret. This comic actually does have a title. But i’m worried that the moment i start using it, it’ll turn from something fun i do to wind down after work into yet another boring obligation. That does seem to be a pattern in my life. So for now this is just the Gaz Redemption AU comic.

And that's all for this part of the AU comic. Next scene is the side-carry. However, before that, i might end up drawing a small shippy/fix-it-fix comic of The Final Empire. I’ve a scene stuck in my head that i wanna get out.

I’m a big big big fan of time-lapse sequences in movies and such. Training/friendship montages especially. I really wanted to experiment with a static scene, showing the progression of Kaladin and Gaz’s friendship over many days. I couldn’t show the time progression from the sky, so i used a bridge being built instead.

Moash just starts calling Kaladin "lordling" at one point and pretty much keeps it up for the rest of Way of Kings. He and Gaz probably just had b*tching sessions about how insufferable Kaladin is. Hey, who hasn't done that!

I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to think about what kind of life Gaz led before joining the army. Since chulls are like my favorite thing on all of roshar i had him work with them. Maybe i'll draw something like this one day. pre-war Gaz with a bunch of chulls.

There's a scene in Way of Kings where Gaz actually does start calling Kaladin "kid" instead of "lordling", when he's telling him that Sadeas won't let wounded bridgemen eat since they can't work. From the way the scene's written i always felt like Kaladin sort of dismissed him like a messenger instead of a superior giving an order, and you could just hear Gaz's emotional walls going back up. That's the way i read the scene at least: it's the kind of thought i put in my fanart/fancomic. I probably think about Gaz's character more than he deserves to begin with, but... what can ya do. (very rough) write up of the AU: here (the way of kings) and here (words of radiance)

There was another page 7 (actually one i stayed up late on new years' eve to draw lol) and it was really good but i scrapped it bc it took the plot somewhere i wasn't having fun with. So instead we get a 6 pages long time-lapse of Kaladin and Gaz becoming friends. (very rough) write up of the AU: here (the way of kings) and here (words of radiance)

When your old bridge sargeant-turned-best friend joins your bodyguard platoon but keeps reflexively rolling up his sleeves so you have to unleash your inner mom. Another Gaz Redemption AU drawing! This one from sometimes during late WoR/early OB. I wrote extensively about the au here (the way of kings) and here (words of radiance)

Inspired by the infamous "BORN TO DIE - WORLD IS A F*CK" t-shirt. I honestly don't have any explaination why i thought this picture would be a good idea, but it was a lot of fun to draw regardless. I really like drawing Kaladin and Gaz, in case it wasn't obvious. Hee hee.

Inspired by that scene of Friends with Joey and Ross taking a nap together. Another scene from the Redemption AU, sometimes post-WoR. (Unfortunately wordy write-up of the AU is here) buddies collapsed from sheer exhaustion after some Radiant business.

Text xposted from tumblr: "And since i finally posted the AU summary, here’s a related picture. This is from somewhere towards the end of AU! Words of Radiance. You can find the full version here - but basically the backstory to this picture is this: after a series of misadventures, Gaz is taken into Bridge 4 by Kaladin, just hours before Moash’s attempted regicide. While he doesn’t partecipate in the fight, sticking to watching from the shadows (because even in the AU he’s not brave/dumb enough to go toe to toe with a full shardbearer) he does intervene afterwards, when Moash is about to run off- by shooting him in the eye socket with a crossbow. This AU is like… a Ripple Effect AU. Because Kaladin and Gaz ate together one time in Way of Kings, they became friends and this ended up stopping a major plotline of OB in its tracks before it had a chance to start. That’s also part of why i enjoy exploring this world. The sheer amount of what-ifs is mindboggling."